My trip to the Silk Road  -- Summer 1999

My trip to the Silk Road

Summer 1999

My first long and exciting trip was to travel along the Silk Road with my highshcool mates in the summer in my sophomore year. All of us were very poor at that time; therefore we selected a special tour designed for poor students. The old saying is right -- what you pay is what you get. It cost each of us less than 2500 RMB to cover the entire transportation and accommodation fee for a three-week trip. It is unbelievable great deal since an air ticket of a single trip  from Guangzhou to Urumchi will cost you that much or more.

We were all happy and energetic young girls and boys. We felt excited to travel by train with “Seat Ticket” which meant one can only sit continuously for 30 hours or more. We were also willing to travel in a train without air conditioning or drinking water.  In a train without drinking water, the only way to get water  was to buy it from people who jumped onto the train when it arrived at a station. These local people were carrying a HUGE container made of lamb skin. One bottle of water costed about 50 cent RMB. When I look back seven years after that ordeal, I feel surprised at myself – How can I get over those days?

But it is still clear in my mind that I was happy and enjoyed the trip completely.

Our first train was supposed to leave from Guangzhou Train Station in a hot summer afternoon. But it was delayed and nobody could tell when it would come. It wasn’t a nice start. With several pieces of luggage with each person, we stuck in the crowded station passenger hall bathing in the summer heat. It was not until it got dark that our train was finally ready for us.

We headed for our first stop,  Lanzhou City -- capital city of Gansu Province.

Aurally, Xi’an City, in stead of Lanzhou City is  the starting point of the Silk Road. Moreover, historically, this trade route was never called Silk Road until a German geographer gave it this romantic name in late 1800s. China’s vast northwestern region is accessible to traveler along this classic trade route, traveler like us. In AD 200, this transcontinental route linked the Roman Empire in the west with the imperial court of China.

Before the discovery of the sea route to India, the Silk Road was the most important connection between the East and the West. This ancient trade route starts in the old capitals of Luoyang and Xi'an (then called Chang'an), reaches the Yellow River at Lanzhou, then skirts westward along deserts and mountains before dividing into three routes at the oasis of Dunhuang. The great part of the Silk Road threads its way through Xinjiang.

Our tour first went west: Lanzhou à Duhuang à Turpan by train first, and then went south by a bus: à Korla à Hetian à Yechang , and went north and east : à Kashi à Aksu à Yining à Urumchi. （I had to omit some cities that I can’t remember.）

City Impression

Lanzhou

Lanzhou is famous for its drew-noodle in China. Even the drawing process is a kind of entertainning performance. During the process, a performer turns ONE single strip of leaven dough into numerous noodles within a minute like a magician. The most delicious in a noodle soup is the beef which are cut into cubic shape, dark in the color of soy bean oil.

We each had a huge bowl of noodle soap and hanged around the city. Later we visited the “First Bridge” across the Yellow River. It was my first visit to Yellow River but diSAPpointed because it was almost dry to small stream which differed from the picture in my mind. But the water was really Yellow, a sad sign of the poor environment protection situation there.

Dunhuang

In most people’s mind, Dunhuang is equal to Mogao Grottoes, and Mogao Grottoes are commonly known as the Caves of a Thousand Buddha. According to Tang Dynasty records, a monk had witnessed onsite a vision of thousand Buddhas under showers of golden rays. Thus inspired, he started the caves construction work that spanned ten dynasties.

Buddhist art has its origins in India. The traveler will note traces of Indian Buddhist art in the earlier works. More recent works depict all walks of life and activities in a local setting. You will relive the daily routines and special events as captured by the artists while you are exploring the 750 caves. There are also ups and downs in the artistic quality over the centuries, depending on the fortunes of Buddhism with available art patronage. Artists in each dynasty painted with their distinctive palette. It is one of the best preserved and most extensive collections of Buddhist paintings and sculptures in the world.

Since the paintings in the caves are very sensitive to light, we only visited several caves with the arts represented different dynasties's style, and of course we were not allowed to use CAMera flash light.  What we could do was to memorize with eyes. “Fly-to-Sky” is the beautiful and vivid name to Buddhist with long and curving sleeves in the painting. It seems that they can fly up to sky by weaving their sleeves to seek the immutably happy land.

Another must-go place in Duhuang is Mount Echoing Sand （or Ming Sha Shan.  It was said the palette of Mogao Grottoes came from this place. The sand here was as fine as powder. Each dune is shaped by the wind with delicate ridge line. Every foot step on it would be erased by wind very quickly by still nobody can resist the temptation to leave his own foot steps on such fine surface. Of course, you can also rent a camel, whose name is “ship of desert”, to view the dune from higher altitude.

I loved the night bazaar in Duguang. There were a lot of delicious and affordable local food and special arts and crafts for family and friends thousands’ miles back home. But later I found each city along the Silk Road has such bazaar selling similar handicraft, such as silver necklace with turquoise and agate, two color brass bracelets, garnet necklace, woodcarvings of ghost faces, and various shapes and looks of pendants helpful in keeping away evils, since they looked scarier than evils. Nevertheless, I enjoyed bargaining in the bazaar especially in the first one.

Turpan

Turpan Basin is the hottest place in China; no wind no rain in the summer. Therefore Its specially condition calculates the sweetest grapes of all. My most unforgettable memory about the Valley of Grape was that I come across anther high school mate in front of a restroom. She joined another completely  tour and would stay in Turpan for only one day. What a small world!

I was such a lover of raisins at that time, fearless of the sugar in them that I bought about 25 lb raisins of 5 different types. I didn’t know the exactly name of each type; I distinguished them by the size and the color. Some are large in dark purple, some are medium in dark red, and some are the common green. I carried them with me for the left three-weeks trip.

I also dare enough to taste uncooked lamb milk in the morning bazaar which was offered free by a local vendor. Though I felt a little disgusted after warning by the tour guide that there might be bacteria in it which caused sickness.

My conclusion is that people do silly things when they are young.

On the Road

From Turpan, we began our trip on the wheels. We were told the bus would be air-conditioned. But unfortunately, right in the first day, an oil leak and small fire incident turned this bus to an “open-window” bus. Some friends in the tour felt angry on this, they blamed the tour guide and started a cold war again him. But I hoped to enjoy my trip. That was it!

That is a saying: One will never understand how big China is until he visits Xinjiang. Xinjiang is the largest province in China.

During the trip, we went through Tian Shan Mountain, across Takelamagan Desert. We spent more than 50％ of daytime in the bus driving from one destination to another, like a team of ancient trader doing business along the Silk Road – a road of experience.

There was a time that we were asked to get off the bus in a turnout of a curving road. Since the summer flood had washed off half of the road, and the driver on the one hand wanted to lighten the weight on the road, on the other hand, he wasn’t confident enough to drive through such dangerous road with 40 lives on his steering wheel and brake. Experienced as he was, he made it.

There was a time that we had a race with a coming storm – dark cloud in the sky indicated a snow – we must get away from the cloud, as far as possible.

There was a time we must stay a night in the bus when we were trying to pass through the largest desert in China. Daytime temperature was too high for a non-air-conditioned car. I remembered that we stopped once in the middle of the trip. When we got off the car, we were all surrounded by the pure dark in which people can do anything, good or evil, without being found out. It was in a Desert. Fortunately, we were all pure young people feeling thirsty and sleepy. The next morning, we stopped at the edge of the desert to take the last look of the desert. The experienced tour guide said we should celebrate since we got away the desert so smoothly.

There were many times that we requested to get off the bus to see the breath-taking beautiful scenes or to buy watermelons to satisfy our thirsty in an oasis.

People

Our tour guide was a high strong man wearing short pants and sandals all the time. He spoke both Mandarin and local language. He told me that he was once a professional boxer but got hurt in one competition with a Russian boxer. He wasn’t able to participate in profession boxing game from then on. He didn’t say why he chose to be a tour guide. But he said he had been to many places in Xinjiang regardless of its huge size and it was important to have a STRONG tour guide when traveled in Xinjiang. I guessed that he meant the violence conflicts between two peoples. He kept our save during the whole trip.

Compared with Shanghai or Guangzhou, the cities in southern Xinjiang are much uncultured, expecailly local Uyghur people. Wherever we went, we could see gangs of children hanging around the streets. They loved to take pictures. Each time we wanted to shot a single-person picture, we got tens of figures in it.  They all laughed happily.

I stayed at a friend’s home in Urumchi for a week after the tour dismissed in Urumchi. She, as all other Uyghur people, was so hospitality. Since she didn’t have a spare bed for me to stay, she then slept on the floor with me leaving her own bed empty. I never see a Han people will treat friends like this. Her name is ShaLaMaiTi. I missed her so much. Hope we can meet again.